Hypocrisy Quotes

A pessimist is a liar, unless he destroys himself, and no less of a hypocrite than a priest who defiles the holy.

~ Mark Samuels

Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and the people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedoms.

~ Edward Gibbon

For, once there's a death, one doesn't like to think there's been harsh words spoken and no chance of taking them back.

~ Agatha Christie

I know of only two alternatives to hypocrisy: perfection or honesty.

~ Philip Yancey

[A]n unpleasant nest of nasty, materialistic and aggressive people, careless of the rights of others, imperfectly democratic at home though quick to see the minor slaveries of others, and greedy without end.

~ Isaac Asimov

Patty: I'll be the good guy.Shermy: I'll be the bad guy.Patty: What are you going to be, Charlie Brown?Charlie Brown: I'll be sort of in-between; I'll be a hypocrite!

~ Charles M. Schulz

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553).

~ Richard Baxter

Before our company set off, at a wink from the officer, Plumpie stood up and proposed a search. I could see that some of the others thought she was wasting our time, but our company commander cheerfully seconded her proposal. He suggested we search him first. A boy was called to do this, and found a big bunch of keys on him. Our commander acted as though he had been genuinely careless, and gave Plumpie a victorious smile. The rest of us searched each other. This roundabout way of doing things reflected a Maoist practice: things had to look as though they were the wish of the people, rather than commands from above. Hypocrisy and playacting were taken for granted.

~ Jung Chang

We visited Mao's old house, which had been turned into a museum-cum-shrine. It was rather grand––quite different from my idea of a lodging for exploited peasants, as I had expected it to be. A caption underneath an enormous photograph of Mao's mother said that she had been a very kind person and, because her family was relatively well off, had often given food to the poor. So our Great Leader's parents had been rich peasants! But rich peasants were class enemies! Why were Chairman Mao's parents heroes when other class enemies were objects of hate? The question frightened me so much that I immediately suppressed it.

~ Jung Chang

I'm a professional journalist. Making up lies to fit the facts - it's what we do.

~ Andrew Klavan

That physician is no better than a murderer, that negligently delayeth till his patient be dead or past cure (389).

~ Richard Baxter

All these faces look happy enough, say Shug. Big and beefy. Eyes clear and innocent, like they don't know them other crooks on the front page. But they the same folks, she say.

~ Alice Walker

...some student asked if he [Larry Summers] didn’t have essentially the same relationship with Bob Rubin. Wasn’t Summer’s opposition to capital controls just a sop to Wall Street banks, which wanted to recoup their risky investments regardless of how doing so affected the country in which they had invested? “Summers just lost it,” said one audience member, a business school student. “he looked at the person and said, “you don’t know what you’re talking about and how dare you ask this question of the president of Harvard?

~ Richard Bradley

I'm annoyed by those who love mankind but are discourteous to people.

~ John Howard Griffin

They attend with Pharisaical strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.

~ Frederick Douglass

All other swindlers upon earth are nothing compared to self-swindlers.

~ Charles Dickens

When a baronet is discovered behind a bush in the park with a guardsman, or a minister of the crown is caught creeping out of a country with his socks stuffed full of bank notes and a woman not his wife ten paces behind, or a public person is revealed disporting himself with a couple of tarts and a teddy bear in West Paddington, they complain to the press that the outcry is hypocritical and that everyone would like to do what they were doing if only they had the chance. They regard the law as an instrument of envy, like nationalization and death duties.

~ Alice Thomas Ellis

He straightened, assuming an odd attitude of dignity – as though it were another mask.

~ Frank Herbert

On the appointed day -- I think it was the next day, but no matter -- Traddles and I repaired to the prison where Mr. Creakle was powerful. It was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. I could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country, if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old.

~ Charles Dickens

But that is the way of life, and that was but one of the first times, among no few to come, that I was taught a useful lesson about how appearances trump truth, and how villains hide their vices behind masks of piety, honour, and decency. And that to denounce evildoers without proof, attack them with weapons, trust blindly in reason or justice, is often the fastest road toward one's own perdition, while the scoundrels who use influence or money as a shield remained untouched.

~ Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Without habitual self-examination, you can be hypocritical, but not see it.

~ Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

Under stress, they seek composure above all. But they do not find equanimity.

~ Sherry Turkle

He prefers a deliberate performance that can be made to seem spontaneous.

~ Sherry Turkle

But, of course, what is up on Facebook is her edited life.

~ Sherry Turkle

He had the arrogance of the believer, but none of the humility of the deeply religious.

~ V.s. Ramachandran

Priests always had much attention lavished on them by their starstruck fans,those devout housewives and wealthy congregants who treated them as if they were guardians of the velvet rope blocking entrance into that ever so exclusive nightclub, Heaven.

~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

The worst kind of tyrant was the one who once had been the victim.

~ John A. Williams

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

~ Christopher Hitchens

Lord, please protect me from Your people.

~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

They will call you immoral if you dare to describe their immorality

~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

He denounced self-pity and pitied himself.

~ Jeffrey Toobin

The result always mattered more than the rhetoric.

~ Jeffrey Toobin

Do we use the Word of God only as a cue card to commandeer our external behavior?

~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

Yes, it was a beautiful sermon, tugging the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there perhaps two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, this was a special occasion...But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away?

~ Winston Graham

Did anyone care for poor Cinderella until her fairy godmother took her in hand? Did anyone look beyond the ragged clothes and sooty face? Did anyone see the unshed tears and the poor, tired face?Obviously not. Appearances matter.

~ Gita V. Reddy

The critics greeted this book with a churlish and horrified outcry. Certain virtuous people, in newspapers no less virtuous, made a grimace of disgust as they picked it up with the tongs to throw it into the fire. Even the minor literary reviews, the ones that retail nightly the tittle-tattle from alcoves and private rooms, held their noses and talked of filth and stench. I am not complaining about this reception; on the contrary I am delighted to observe that my colleagues have such maidenly susceptibilities.

~ Émile Zola

He said to the cardinal, I'm a peasant, not instructed in the ways of heaven. But I have never broken my word. And you, a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, with all your holy garments and crosses of Jesus, lied to me like a heathen Moor. Your sacred office alone will not save your life.

~ Mario Puzo

The only difference between a saint and a pervert is Hypocrisy.

~ Amine The I

You desire the end but close your eyes to the means. You want the garden to be beautiful, provided that the smell of manure is kept well away from your fastidious nose.

~ P.d. James

I don't like that guy. He calls the cops for everything.

~ Jōji Tsubota